Chapter Eight #4
“They’re a lot of work,” Wyatt protested, even though it was weak. He’d been making complicated meals all week because he was bored and also because he wanted to give Ryan something, a little return for everything Ryan had offered so selflessly.
“Like you wouldn’t do anything he asked when he bats his lashes,” Flor scoffed, putting an end to the question once and for all.
Wyatt turned back to his stack of banana leaves, cheeks burning with heat and embarrassment. Was he so obvious? He thought he had his feelings at least partially under wraps.
“Well, he’s not alone in that,” Ryan said quietly, and Flor made an approving noise.
Wyatt and Ryan climbed back in the Tesla an hour later, fifty pasteles richer, with a load of unspoken, raw emotion boiling between them.
Flor had seen them off with a tight hug each. “You take care of him,” she’d murmured to Wyatt under her breath during his. “He cares more than he lets on.”
The problem was that Ryan already seemed to care, so if he cared even more, felt even deeper, Wyatt was afraid of what the future held for them.
He couldn’t give Ryan what he wanted—what they both wanted—but they were both drowning here, and there were no good ideas left to hold onto.
“Thank you for bringing me today,” Wyatt said, because trying to re-establish their friendship seemed like the safest bet.
Ryan merged onto the freeway, driving far slower than he had on the way to Flor’s house. Wyatt wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t want their bubble to end or if he was afraid of being alone with him.
Maybe a combination of both.
“Of course, I said I would.” Ryan’s voice was carefully neutral, and even though Wyatt knew he wasn’t alone in feeling this way, it hit him hard that Ryan felt equally helpless.
A minute of silence passed between them, but it didn’t seem to deflate the tension, only ratchet it higher.
Wyatt knew he had to do something to give them some space, before they made a mistake and did something they couldn’t take back. “I thought tomorrow I’d head up to Napa, see my nana.”
“Shouldn’t be an issue,” Ryan said, still so painfully neutral. Wyatt didn’t know what he’d expected. Ryan to beg him to stay? To ask to go with him? Neither one was really an option, but sometimes, Wyatt realized, you wanted the impossible.
“I can make you breakfast before I leave . . .”
“No need,” Ryan interrupted, finally sounding impatient. “I have a breakfast meeting with Eric tomorrow.”
Wyatt knew without asking that the purpose was to discuss the faux relationship that Ryan should have already started.
Maybe when he got back from Napa, Ryan would have already found someone else.
It would still be crushing, but at least it would be crushing without a single speck of hope to be found.
It was the hope that was the worst; the tantalizing possibility if only Wyatt could decide the burden he’d been carrying forever suddenly weighed too much.
“I really hope you find what you need,” Wyatt said quietly. He didn’t say that he hoped Ryan would find what he wanted, because he was beginning to figure out that couldn’t happen.
Ryan didn’t respond, only gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white, and Wyatt knew the conversation was over, and maybe even their budding friendship.
He’d have to see when he came back from Napa and surveyed the damage. He sighed; he wasn’t looking forward to it.
When Ryan pulled the car into the garage, making an offhand comment about going for a jog, Wyatt did what he always did when life got too hard—he retreated to the kitchen.
It was still Ryan’s kitchen, in Ryan’s house, but Wyatt had a feeling that he wouldn’t be disturbed.
He put the pasteles, carefully wrapped, into the freezer, and went to his cottage to change. Since it was still warm, he opted just for a pair of shorts, and when he got back into the main house, he opened the windows in the kitchen and turned the music up.
Moving his hips to the upbeat guitar, he pulled out ingredients for a savory goat cheese torta with roasted red peppers and a lot of garlic. He wasn’t going to be kissing anyone, and if he got a perverse pleasure out of making sure that Ryan wouldn’t be either, who could blame him?
He carefully lined the springform pan with plastic wrap, and then got to beating the cream cheese with the goat cheese.
Frankly, he realized as he worked the whisk through the cold bricks, he should have let the ingredients get to room temperature before tackling them—his pastry chef friend Miles would be appalled at him trying to get a smooth, incorporated mixture from cold cream cheese and goat cheese, but it also gave his arm a good workout and Wyatt was in a mood where he wanted it to burn a little.
It took a few long minutes, then he added the heavy cream and started thinking about the herbs he wanted to add. The garlic was roasting in the oven still, and would be for another ten minutes. He’d add that last, to give it a little chance to cool.
Dill, he thought, pulling the leafy herb from the produce drawer in the fridge. He also had some great basil, and he added some parsley for good measure, chopping everything up finely, and mixing it into the bowl.
While he was waiting for the garlic to finish, he roasted his peppers, charring them on the gas stove, and then wrapping them in plastic so he could easily peel the skins off.
Finally he was ready to assemble everything, layering in long, thin strips of roasted red pepper in the springform pan with alternating layers of the cream cheese mixture.
Finishing wrapping it up, he stuck it in the fridge to chill, even though he already knew he wasn’t ready to relax.
He whipped up a quick curry yogurt marinade and stuck it on the chicken breasts for dinner. With salad and rice, that would be a perfect dinner for him and Ryan—if he even decided to join him.
It was hard to say if the driving beat of the music was keeping him going, or all the heat in Ryan’s eyes as he’d stared at him all afternoon. But the reason didn’t matter, Wyatt theorized. He was still hot and worked up and frankly about to go out of his skin with desire.
He was just whipping up a batch of parmesan crackers to eat the goat cheesecake with when Ryan walked into the kitchen.
He’d also opted not to wear anything other than shorts, riding low on his narrow hips, and Wyatt’s hand clenched on the handle of the cheese grater.
He remembered exactly what Ryan’s skin had tasted like right there, at his obliques, where the skin went from tan to something paler.
He wasn’t ever going to forget the salty-sweet tang of his sweat.
Here he was, driving himself up the wall with all this food they didn’t need, because he couldn’t forget.
Ryan hadn’t forgotten either. That much was obvious.
“You’re here,” he said stupidly. Like Wyatt would be anywhere else.
“I’m here,” Wyatt retorted testily. “I’m your private chef, remember?”
“You’re hard to forget,” Ryan said, a wry edge to his voice.
That was the damning part of all this. Neither of them could figure out how to get past their attraction—if that’s all it was. Wyatt had his doubts at this point.
“Yeah, well it’s no walk in the park for me either,” Wyatt said, attacking the Parmigiano-Reggiano like it had personally insulted him.
“Really?” Ryan sounded surprised and Wyatt looked up to find that he’d come around the kitchen island and was now seriously encroaching in his personal space bubble.
It was a mistake. They both knew it. But this thing had been bubbling away all afternoon like a good Sunday meat sauce, and Wyatt was running out of ways to tell his body no.
Besides, he thought with resignation, they hadn’t eaten the roasted garlic goat cheese yet.
Wyatt set the cheese grater down decisively. “Really,” he repeated.
The earthy scent of the cheese was still floating in the air as he reached out for Ryan at the same moment Ryan reached for him. His skin was damp under Wyatt’s hands, and he wanted to taste it still, to reacquaint himself with the flavor, but he was too desperate for Ryan’s mouth.
Later, he told himself. Even though they both knew there wasn’t going to be a later. There was just going to be this desperate, electric, sweaty kiss.
Ryan’s fingers dug past the waistband of his shorts and pulled him hard, until they were crowded up together. His mouth was devouring Wyatt’s, like he couldn’t stop, like he wouldn’t stop.
It sucked that Wyatt was going to have to be the reasonable one when the last thing he wanted was to push Ryan away.
Somehow, he did it.
“We can’t do this,” he gasped into the space between them. Just a moment before they’d been a moment away from taking this even further. His dick protested that it wasn’t going to be happening after all.
His heart was protesting too, but Wyatt was already in trouble enough, so he ignored both of them.
“I know.” Ryan sounded wrecked. Wyatt couldn’t see his expression because he couldn’t look at him right now. If he looked, he’d do more that he regretted.
“I’m going to Napa tomorrow,” Wyatt reminded him. Go find someone else.
Ryan didn’t say anything; he just turned and walked out of the kitchen.
Wyatt had a feeling that he wouldn’t see him back for dinner.